harry potter - When did Wormtail become a Death Eater?

Wormtail had the Dark Mark and everything, which means he was in Voldemort's inner circle.

This itself is strange already, as we see in Goblet that Voldemort is very condescending towards Wormtail for his talentlessness despite having taken care of him for the whole year, and helping him out with his elaborate plot against Harry.

Since Wormtail was more friendly with the Marauders since his school years, I would assume it would take him quite some time to gain enough trust with Voldemort to get the high honour of being branded with the Dark Mark.

In the 3rd book Sirius says that Wormtail had been hiding from Voldemort's old supporters in Azkaban because they all thought he double-crossed Voldemort, as he met his downfall at the Potter's on Wormtail's information.

Keeping in mind that Voldemort likes to work alone and in secrecy as much as possible (in Goblet, during the trial of Karkaroff scene, he mentions that only Voldemort knew the true identities of all the DE's and even fellow DE's did not always know each other), that many DE's in Azkaban knew that Voldemort had gone to the Potter's on Wormtail's information indicates that Wormtail had been with Voldemort for quite some time by then.

However, this answer to this question says that Snape didn't know Wormtail was a Death Eater, and I think it is fair to say that Snape at least, by this time, was already in Voldemort's inner circle.

The fact that he didn't know Wormtail was a Death Eater is the reason given for him not taking a more direct approach in protecting Lily, and not alerting Dumbledore to the fact that there was a traitor in their midst, when he went to beg Dumbledore to protect Lily.

So the question is, when exactly did Wormtail become a Death Eater? He must have been with Voldemort for quite a while by the time Voldemort went to attack the Potters, but if this was true Snape should have known about it and alerted Dumbledore.

(This probably has no canon answer, so any extrapolation based on canon information is more than welcome)

Answer

Based on comments made by Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew was passing on information to Voldemort for over a year.

“DON’T LIE!” bellowed Black. “YOU’D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!”

_{^{Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 19, The Servant of Lord Voldemort}}

Peter Pettigrew admits to work for Voldemort.

“He — he was taking over everywhere!” gasped Pettigrew. “Wh-what was there to be gained by refusing him?”

_{^{Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 19, The Servant of Lord Voldemort}}

This could be taken as an indication that Peter Pettigrew, willingly offered his services to Voldemort.

We can draw one more conclusion from the comments above. Sirius Black was in Azkaban and would have heard about Peter Pettigrew passing information to Voldemort for a year.

Now lets look at the timelines of the events leading to Voldemort’s downfall.

1978

Peter, James and Lilly pass out of Hogwarts

Joined Order of Phoenix

1980

Snape eavesdropped on Sybill Trelawney prophecy and informs Voldemort about it.

Voldemort decides to target Harry Potter.

1981

Fidelius Charm was performed in secret.

Less than a week later, Peter betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort.

Peter Pettigrew was not very talented, which would rule him out of more important and dangerous missions. This would have impact on amount of information he would have. Initially Pettigrew might have had friends among Death Eaters (since most of them went to Hogwarts) but he would not have any major informations to report to Voldemort.

As I look at the time line of the events. Peter Pettigrew would have been useful to Voldemort only after Voldemort had decided to kill Harry Potter which was in 1980.

Now taking into account what Sirius said and also the timeline. It looks very likely that Peter Pettigrew became a death eater in 1980.

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

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